Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Data suggests that young Americans with student debt may be deterred by that debt from buying homes and cars, adding drag to the US economy. Researchers at Amherst College and Simon Frasier University ran a head-to-head competition between a D-Wave quantum computer,…
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Writing at A Fistful of Euros, Edward Hugh suggests that some countries may die demographically, losing population so severely that they are no longer sustainable as politico-economic entities: It leads me personally to ask the question whether it is not possible that some countries will actually die, in the sense of becoming totally unsustainable, and…
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Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. In a new paper in Science, researchers report that they have succeeded in creating a persistent bacterial infection in a strain of mosquitoes that transmit malaria. Scientists have long hoped that by infecting mosquitoes with certain bacteria they could stop them…
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Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. A group of DIY biologist and entrepreneurs are attempting to develop plants that glow, in research to be conducted in a citizen biotech lab and funded by Kickstarter. The plants might eventually serve as useful light sources; in the shorter term…
DetailsHere are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. The US is becoming an artisan beverage powerhouse. First it was California wine at the Judgement of Paris. Now niche US distillers are beating premium Scottish Whisky in tasting competitions, and American microbrews are surging in popularity in Germany. People are attempting to create reputation-based…
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Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. According to the Hamilton Project’s Jobs Gap calculator, at the current pace of jobs growth, the US economy will not achieve 2008 levels of employment until 2020. On April 15 the US Supreme Court heard arguments on whether patents owned by…
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Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Mining mobile phone data enabled researchers to draw more efficient bus routes in Abidjan, the largest city of Ivory Coast. When maternal rats are fed a high fat, high sugar diet during pregnancy and lactation their offspring have a higher preference…
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Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. In 2011, federal health officials and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended cholesterol screening for children between 9 and 11 years of age, concerned about development of heart disease risk factors early in life. Now a new study has identified…
DetailsHere are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Highlighting different ways to look at information and organization, San Francisco artist Chris Cobb created an installation at a book store in which he cataloged 20,000 books by color. (Click the link, it is a wonder to behold.) Ford is…
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Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Fifty-nine percent of Americans are afraid of falling out of their current economic class, a poll finds. In this video interview, Dr. Susan Katz, a retired pediatrician and biochemist, discusses new research on “obesogens”–chemicals that may promote weight gain in humans and…
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